Tuesday, November 1, 2011

No candy for the weary

So much for 30% chance of rain they were predicting for us for Halloween! It started right around 5pm, and got progressively heavier until about 9pm... prime trick or treating hours! Boo!

I had half a mind to try to convince Luke not to go out in the rain. I knew Will and Matt wouldn't care... but Luke had put on his Buzz Lightyear costume earlier in the day for his day care costume parade and refused to take it off. He was in a zone. Trick or treating was on his mind... partially my fault. After two years of him kind of being into it, I really tried to talk up trick or treating this year. Plus, we were going out with our next door neighbor (love of all my boys' lives), who was ready to hit the road for her candy haul before we even got home.

We were going to have to grin and bear it. Get soaked. Take one for the team. Child joy and Snickers bars were our only rewards.

Got the boys fed. Rain fell harder. Got them into full costume. Outside, it just got more and more dreary. Took some individual pictures before everyone turned into drowned versions of their Halloween glory.

Luke - Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story 1, 2, and 3. Thanks Grammy for the glow in the dark sword - big hit!

Will - Army ranger. The costume came with a hard dark green WWII type helmet, which doesn't really work too well when you have a head rest on a wheelchair. We improvised - and turned Will into an Army MASH surgeon - with a surgical headwrap that my mom bought Nate years ago!

Matt... oh Matt, the funniest costume ever. The garden gnome, complete with white bushy eyebrows on the hat and elfish red shoe covers. The costume also came with a white beard, but Matt wasn't having that. It was enough just to get him to keep the hat on!

They even agreed with me enough to allow a couple of group shots before we headed out! Nate was standing behind me, though, with promises of candy and door bells in an attempt to drag one mostly smiling photo from the gaggle. Success!

There are no photos of trick or treating. I'm sorry. I just haven't sprouted enough hands yet. Nate had Will in the backpack (good move - wheelchair would have been a nightmare in the rain), one hand on a big umbrella, and the other hand holding onto Luke and two candy bags. I had an umbrella in one hand, and Matt in the other... when he wasn't squirming to get down.

All three boys enjoyed themselves immensely. For them, it wasn't so much about the candy as it was getting to run around after dark and ring everyone's door bells. We were out for about an hour before we decided that we'd had enough. The candy pull was good. Luke's shoes were soaked completely through. After multiple times of picking Matt up out of the puddles, his shoes had completely soaked my pants. Nate had missed a couple of times with getting the umbrella over the back of Will's backpack and had sent rain down the back of his neck. We were done!

Got home, peeled costumes off and laid them out to dry, put shoes in the dryer. Took inventory of the candy. Some of the M&Ms had to be tossed because their paper wrapper had gotten soaked through. But all in all, we got both our rewards... kids were thrilled, and Nate and I will have candy to last us a while... or not :)

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